November 25, 2024 • 52 mins
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NeuroOptimal Neurofeedback Technology:
- The host introduces NeuroOptimal, a non-invasive brain-training system designed to improve focus, mental clarity, and reduce anxiety. It requires no diagnosis and is used as a complement to traditional methods like counseling.
- The system is explained as helping users relax and train their brains to manage stress and emotions more effectively. The host emphasizes the benefits for people in Western Oklahoma, where such services are scarce.
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Elliot's Journey and Experience with MS:
- Elliot shares his personal challenges with multiple sclerosis (MS), exploring how the diagnosis and associated pain have impacted his mental and physical health.
- He reflects on the mental toll of MS, detailing how it exacerbates feelings of frustration and overthinking. The diagnosis initially led to two years in a wheelchair and significant mental struggles before he found ways to rebuild his life.
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Mindset and Coping Strategies:
- Elliot emphasizes the importance of shifting from a self-centered mindset to one focused on helping others. He discusses how stepping outside himself and connecting with others has been a powerful coping mechanism.
- He advocates for living with hope and faith, stressing the power of giving hope to others as a way to find purpose and strength.
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The Role of Faith and Community:
- Both the host and Elliot discuss how faith plays a vital role in navigating life's challenges. They reflect on the importance of vulnerability, sharing personal struggles, and finding support within a community.
- They also delve into the balance between self-reliance and dependency on God and others, highlighting how shared experiences foster empathy and growth.
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Hope, Positivity, and Overcoming Self-Pity:
- Elliot talks about breaking out of cycles of self-pity and negativity. He stresses the importance of recognizing such patterns early and actively working to redirect focus toward helping others and maintaining an optimistic outlook.
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Powerful Analogies and Insights:
- The discussion includes impactful analogies, such as how trauma and mental health challenges affect individuals like being trapped in a bottle, where focus narrows to survival mode.
- Insights from faith, including verses from the Bible, are used to frame personal challenges and growth as part of a greater plan.
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Encouraging Vulnerability and Storytelling:
- The podcast underscores the value of sharing personal stories and being open about struggles, which can inspire and guide others dealing with similar issues.
Final Thoughts:
The episode concludes with an invitation for listeners to explore NeuroOptimal services and sign up for positive texts via the host's website. Elliot's journey is presented as a testament to resilience, the power of faith, and the impact of a supportive community in overcoming life's challenges.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I don't know if I get up today. I don't know if I give one single today.
My whole outlook is sunk in gray and I have no idea why I woke up this way.
Got my phone in my right hand, my books on the nightstand. If I unlock and I
add pop, I'm stuck there.
I'm a dead man. So Lord, give me the strength to please read one page.
If it works in any way, I'll move on to the next dango deal.
(00:20):
I got my socks on. I'm coming up. Welcome to Positively Undefeated.
This is a podcast that talks about the day-to-day struggle ordinary people have
over their demons and how each day they remain positively undefeated.
We share ideas and ways that you can empower yourself to remain strong so that
you can embrace the journey of living.
(00:42):
Okay, welcome to Positively Undefeated. I'm Burl Stricker, your host.
If you guys haven't had a chance, go to our website, evenwoneless.com.
There's a few things that are going on with us.
Number one, we got a new system is called NeuroOptimal.
It's neurofeedback. It's a great tool.
(01:04):
It's a great tool for help training your brain. It's a great tool for really
for you mentally to work out, for you mentally to like focus, work on those things.
That's what this system does. And we have that available here.
And so if you'd like to try it, go to our website, evenoneless.com.
(01:24):
It's a great asset for here in Western Oklahoma. There isn't another place that
does it anywhere near here.
But really, it's painless. It's non-invasive. It's really easy.
You hook up to it. You listen to some music. And really, it just helps you to
train your brain to focus.
So anyway, great. If you have a chance, give us a call, and we'd be happy to set it up for you.
(01:49):
Um and we're here again with elliot what's up elliot
how's it going burl it's a pleasure to be
back here i i i'm honored to keep
coming back and being on your show i appreciate you doing it
i um yeah i'm pretty excited about you
tried the neurofeedback and and and again
it's not some magic pill it's you know the really the goal is how did you feel
(02:11):
overall afterwards were you still or how were you feeling my okay so i went
into it and i mean i have a lot of things going on in my mind right now so there
there was a lot of distractions but going through it.
I got to think, think of it in a different way. Yeah. Like I,
like I never thought of it the way that I did watching it.
(02:33):
I, I don't know. Maybe that, I guess it was just more clarity.
Yeah. Of. Did the music interrupt or stop while you were doing it?
The music actually, I mean, I, I was like, like you were saying,
I was in kind of like a meditative state.
So I was really feeling the music and then, but yeah. So I think,
(02:55):
I think everything, the way that it's set up is absolutely perfect.
I think it's, it'll, it'll do the job without even you trying to do it.
I mean, it's, it's working without you even knowing it.
Well, I tried this, you know, Elliot, I probably told you this before where
people listening, where in the world I came up with this idea.
First of all, it's for a nonprofit, even when less.
(03:15):
And, you know, that's the system is, you know, it's got a lot under the hood.
I mean, it really does. And I love it because I always am looking for,
you know, solutions that are not, you know, this doesn't come in a pill form.
It doesn't create, you know, have to have a diagnosis.
(03:35):
It doesn't, I feel like there is,
those things are great. I think that counseling, for example, is great.
I think this is another tool in your tool belt that you can use for.
Again, you can do that as many times as you want, and that's what I love about it.
I know when I did it this weekend, and I just felt calmer when I was done, you know.
And I know that's not everybody's experience, but, you know,
(03:59):
when I did it, it just helped me focus a little bit more.
They say that you need, like, an average of 10 sessions, really,
to, you know, experience the benefit of it. But, you know, it doesn't,
again, there's no diagnosis involved. This is not a medical model.
But what it does do, it's like it helps you sleep better.
(04:23):
It helps you focus more. It helps you, like if you're dealing with anxiety,
and you were talking about kind of dealing with some anxiety this morning when you got on it. Yeah.
And so I think those things, you know, that's the goal, is it helps reduce those
things without taking some kind of medication or drug or, you know,
any of that. And so I'm very excited about what it can do.
(04:44):
You're the second person to
try it. So that's cool. But I appreciate you trying and being willing to.
But we're really going to try to get it out there. I think that there are some
opportunities to help people.
And, you know, of course, we're also looking at it as a way to,
you know, make some money with our not-for-profit and be able to bring in some money.
You know, of course, everybody likes the donation. And, you know,
(05:05):
I'd love it if somebody called up and said, Burl, I want to give you a million
dollars for your suicide awareness, you know, not for profit.
But that's not realistic.
What's realistic is that we don't want to really be out there begging for money.
What we want to do is be able to provide services that really can make a difference.
And so, you know, when I looked it up to see who else does this,
(05:28):
the closest one was either Denver, Colorado, or like the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
And so I'm like, man, what a great thing to bring to Western Oklahoma.
And it's great for kids. It is. Absolutely.
And it's absolutely like.
Now that I watched it the first time, now I know kind of what to expect and
kind of what to expect for the next time. Yeah.
(05:49):
But so I think that like the 10 sessions, you start paying more attention each session.
I know like something for me, like I have to keep doing it repetitively before I understand it.
Yeah. I think it's a great tool. And, you know, I want to encourage anybody
listening. If you're in our area and you would love to do it, I'd love to hook you up.
(06:12):
And like I said, you can pretty much just sit there and listen to music.
That's all you have to do. There's no really requirement besides that.
So if you get a chance, go to our website.
There are my numbers on the website. And so you can give me a call,
and we'll try to set that up.
Elliot, so how's life treating you since the last time we talked?
(06:35):
Last week yeah yeah it's uh
i can't believe it's only been a week there's there's been
a lot of things that's been happening uh the past week and
uh a lot of it is um that
i had a hard time controlling my my uh
attitude my temper um especially when
i was in a lot of pain and um it
(06:57):
just seemed like it just kept getting worse so i was just making more things
where i was i was making everything difficult in my
life because i i didn't know where
i was so what do
you mean you're making everything difficult explain that okay so
i overthink a lot of things i actually overthink everything um somebody said
(07:22):
one time that a normal human being has 30 000 thoughts go through their mind
a day 30 000 different thoughts go through their mind a day For me,
I have five thoughts that go around my mind 30,000 times a day.
And it's always the same. I can never, I can never get out of that.
(07:44):
For some reason, like I get into that and I just go into the whole pity party
and all that stuff. And it just...
I'm not aware of the situation I'm in.
I'm aware of the situation I'm in, but I'm not aware of the location.
So I don't know where I'm at when I'm going through these feelings.
(08:10):
And if I don't know where I'm at going through these feelings,
I'm not going to even touch to figure out what's going on with it. Yeah.
So I have to really look, what is the biggest thing that's distracting me right now?
And it's my selfish, self-centered mind that I have going on because all I can
(08:32):
think about is my pain and I have a hard time getting, like,
I think when I'm in pain, I don't think people are hearing me.
They're listening to me, but they're not hearing.
I feel like they're not understanding, but maybe it's me that doesn't understand the pain that I'm in.
(08:55):
I'm curious, you know, Elliot, as you're talking and as we talked in the past,
do you think that a lot of your, let's say, troubles or problems or whatever,
do you think it stems from your diagnosis of MS?
Or was this already there before the diagnosis of MS?
(09:16):
Do you think the MS created some of these things that are going on or do you
think it was already there?
Oh, that's a good question. And I was talking about, I was discussing with this with another friend.
Okay, so before my diagnosis, there was always something wrong with me.
(09:36):
I could never figure out what it was.
And then, of course, that was making me frustrated. I mean, I was making my mom frustrated.
That was making me frustrated. I mean, you could just see the frustration.
So by the time that I got the diagnosis that it was multiple sclerosis,
I've already lived with it for so many years.
(09:58):
Um and so we
were thinking about it and now that i i'm pretty sure that coming up with like
this they're having a hard time differentiating uh head trauma from a blunt
force to actually just going through trauma because it has kind of the same effect um so.
(10:23):
So when okay so if you
if you break down the word disease okay and
it's dis ease so you're like
you're you're not at easy you're at this ease
so like when we go through struggling um situations
and stuff we're not we're not at ease we're we're
agitated we're frustrated and we're going 90
(10:46):
miles an hour um people start
having like the like the brain hemorrhages and stuff
like that i mean this is how serious that that trauma can be i mean because
it can cause so many things mentally well yeah but when you're talking about
the trauma again is it trauma from the ms diagnosis and the the the side effects
(11:07):
of that or do you feel like it was trauma before that,
okay so the trauma started before the before i got the diagnosis because there
was something that was going on with me i didn't know what it was i i hated
what was going on with me so then after i get the diagnosis and of course there
was the ms diagnosis i mean that just.
(11:30):
Absolutely took everything from me because knowing
that there was there was something always wrong with me but
then finally getting the the knowledge of what
actually it is and it and it's something that's
just not in my head you know
um that i think that
(11:50):
is probably where the trauma came in
is is growing well growing
up with it that was the start of the trauma and there's
like i said there's always something wrong with me and then after i
get the diagnosis the first thing that i think of is the negative and i'm always
thinking of like all the things that i'm not going to be able to do so then
(12:13):
that shut me down so bad mentally and then that's why i was in the wheelchair
for the two years and it took me over five years to like get back up and.
Being able to do things physically. Mentally, I wasn't there.
I've never really been there mentally because I've been out of it so long physically.
(12:34):
Yeah. It was hard for me to get into it mentally.
Yeah. Well, what do you think, you know, as I'm listening to you talk,
what do you think that you're, what do you hope comes out of your life?
Like, you know, you have a lot of years left.
I hope so. And I'm curious what you hope to get out of your remaining years
(12:58):
left, because what do you look, how does the future look to you?
The future looks to me like what I'm doing right now. And what I'm doing right
now is I'm getting out of myself. I'm going out and I'm talking to people.
I'm helping people with the situations that I have been through.
Um, and then watching somebody experience that for the first time, um,
(13:23):
when you sit down and you talk with them and they finally have that,
that self appreciation for themselves, you know, they, they,
they got that smile, they, their eyes ain't no better feeling than that.
Um and that that's what keeps me going is is is helping somebody else experience this.
(13:44):
This great life there's a lot of complications
but it's a great life and and a
lot of it is like i said it was it was it
was the deceit like i got that so i wasn't
i was stressed out and when i was stressed out i
get angry your blood pressure raises your rate i mean
all those things you can physically hurt yourself
(14:05):
just by being agitated or whatever for so
long and i think once somebody
showed me how to to ease that
pain he showed me how to start to ease
that pain and i just i've been on that ever since because that just keeps me
going like i said what keeps me going is helping other people watching watching
(14:28):
somebody else yeah go off of um listen to what you say then And it sparks a direct attack.
They feel like they're not alone.
They feel like. Well, I look at, you know, whenever I've talked to you,
we talked several times and we've known each other now for a couple of years.
(14:50):
And I think it's a year, a couple of years.
That's what it feels like. But anyway, and really my, I have the overall same impression that I,
when I first met you is that, man, there's lots of opportunity for you to really
help somebody and, and, and be an inspiration to somebody.
Because, you know, I think that even though we've talked about the diagnosis
(15:16):
of MS, that it's definitely, you know, a debilitating and progressive, you know, illness.
But I think there's so much you can offer to really to other people to be able
to, you know, inspiration from how you are dealing with it, how you're, you know, you know.
I think that even if you had like a daily journal, you know,
(15:39):
that it just shows that there's, yes, there's all kinds of things going on,
but I think that you can be inspirational to those people.
And yeah, and I think that it reminds me of kind of like the saying is like,
we all feel like we're special and different, even in our problems.
And I know I could see why you would feel that way.
(16:01):
Like, you're special. Because, I mean, how many people do I know that have MS? I've known some.
You know, I used to work in healthcare. I was working in nursing homes forever.
And we had people in there with MS.
So I have some experience with that. I had a friend that was a CPA of mine. Yeah.
You know, he did, you know, my taxes and whatever, and he had MS.
(16:24):
And so I have some experience there.
But it's definitely, you know, unique to you.
You know, there's not too many people I know currently that have it,
you know, that I talk to on a regular basis.
And so you are unique, but I feel like also it's easier for me to say that too.
Like I'm unique because I'm dealing with this problem, X, Y, and Z. Yeah.
(16:47):
But the truth is we're not really that unique. We all have our own deal.
It's all similar. We all have our own problems, but yet how we deal with those
problems is really the same.
You know, we are not how we deal with them, but the fact that we all have problems
that are different, we all have problems.
(17:07):
We all are struggling in different ways. and yet
there seems to be this continuity there that
it's easy to forget or easy to you know think i'm
special because my problems or whatever but the
the truth is we're all struggling right and i
think that the fact that somebody they can
relate to you despite them not having a
(17:29):
meth right but yet they're still struggling they're
struggling and i can see how it's easy to
for people to judge you or vice
versa you to judge them well if they didn't if they
had ms you know they wouldn't be as good as
bad as whatever but you still see that
that's not productive you know in any means
(17:50):
and that i mean that's really why i'm why i
want to do this what i'm doing is oh because it's just
a mindset it's about changing your mindset like i have ms but ms doesn't have
me yeah i i'm i whenever i walk out outside i'm not wearing a sign that says
i have ms feel sorry for me or i'm not wearing a sign that says like i have
(18:14):
to use a walker and i'm 42 years old and.
I'm i'm not looking for that kind of attention but sometimes i feel like i'm
getting i'm i'm begging for that kind of attention right but that's my perception
of what other people are thinking.
So for me, I have to change my mind.
And then like when I say, when I wake up in the morning, I do my honest,
(18:38):
I have to be honest with myself. I have to have hope.
The only way that I have hope is by giving it away. So I can't stay in my bedroom
and give away hope. I have to go out in the public and get hope, give away hope.
And then I got to have faith. I got to believe that God has got me no matter what.
Yeah. And if I do that and then realize, like, we were talking about earlier,
(19:02):
I was talking about it earlier with a friend that says, why does it say that—.
Um, we know how to handle situations, which used to baffle us.
And it doesn't say I know how to handle situations that used to baffle us.
And it's because it's, it's a, we problem.
It's not just a, you problem. We all have the same problem. Sometimes it's in different severities.
(19:26):
I mean, you can't compare your pain to my pain and say like,
I cannot believe how you're doing this. But then you tell me your pain and I'll
be like, I don't know how you're doing it.
It would be impossible for me to do that. But we're doing it.
And it's just all about that mindset.
And I kind of just lost where I was going with it.
(19:50):
Well, I think that it's also, you know, I think about, you know,
I used to live in self-pity, you know, and I used to constantly live in that place.
And what that self-pity looked like for me is that I thought about dying constantly.
I just thought about, oh, I don't want to live.
I'd say stuff like, excuse my lanes, but fuck my life in my head.
(20:13):
I would say those things.
And it would be like a record player just constantly rotating and saying the
same things over and over again in my head.
And that came from this place of self-pity, which maybe it comes from.
I think that can come from all kinds of different places.
I think it can come from despair. I think it can come from depression.
(20:35):
But part of that, when you talked about the hope, it's like,
I know now that if I have that loop going on inside of my head where I'm thinking
these negative thoughts.
That that loop is, you know, a indication of something bigger going on.
You know, I know that I cannot live in that constant loop of negativity in my
(20:58):
life, because if I do, then it's just going to, you know, take me down ultimately.
And so I think one of the things I've learned over, you know,
the last couple of years is I have to recognize that quickly and I really have
to do something about it.
And I think you said it, it's like, I think, you know, I used to say,
well, what do you do about it?
But I think the answer really foremost is get outside yourself and try to help other people.
(21:25):
Try to focus on other people.
One of the things that really hit me right from the beginning,
you're talking about the big book, and one of the things that hit me almost
immediately was not to pray for myself, but pray for other people.
And I never really heard that concept before.
But I think that that idea, that's what I, if somebody asks me my opinion about
(21:50):
stuff, that's one of the things I tell them is that your prayer life,
as mechanical as it can be, and I've said it many times, that my prayer life
many times is very mechanical.
It might be just reading the Lord's Prayer or reading.
And to be honest with you, I don't even, I'm not a big fan of the Lord's Prayer.
I never have been. But what I've realized is that, man, I can just take a prayer
(22:15):
like the Lord's Prayer and just repeat it, you know, at times.
And it feels mechanical.
But part of that is that I'm really praying for—I want to pray for other people.
I want to stay out of that self-focused because, you know, I do know my problems.
And it's like being in that self-pity cycle, it's just no good.
(22:36):
But I found that if I'm praying for, you know, my friends and people that I
know and my family, that that gets me out of that.
And if I make that a daily habit, that seems to make a huge difference.
You know, when I look at that, do you know, okay, when you're talking about
that and you become aware of the situation, what's that? More coffee.
(22:58):
Yeah, sure. People figure us getting more coffee. Okay. Okay.
What was I saying well I can't remember exactly what it was we're just like
praying getting outside yourself and,
Okay, so when we get outside of ourselves and we start praying for other people,
(23:19):
we're starting to accept, and this is really weird, we're starting to,
without knowing it, we're starting to accept a new habit, a new responsibility.
And that's a lot of, like, with me, with the trauma and everything that I've
gone through, and every person's like this, we operate off of learned behavior.
(23:43):
So from ever since we were like little kids or
whatever we we were accustomed to learn
behavior so we would see like what
other people were doing and we would try to mimic that we
would try to to to be
that um oh man
so when i'm praying for
(24:04):
somebody else i'm becoming more acceptance of like
what's going on like in my life i'm
starting to realize i'm starting to take an inner look at
myself when i start praying for other people because
because when i pray for other people i'm praying for everything that i want
and um i then that makes me aware of the things that i need to change in my
(24:26):
life yeah and i think and like i said it all comes back down to the the the mindset
um i had a
friend she came up to me and
she said well i heard you had ms and i heard you
had all these things and she was asking me some questions about it and she was
asking me like what does it do to you mentally and i said mentally it's one
(24:49):
of the worst things ever she goes well i had a friend she she was 37 when she
was diagnosed she had three kids a house a husband And she had all these great
careers and everything.
She killed herself at 39.
Because the pain was too much. It wasn't the physical pain, but it was just the mental pain.
(25:11):
And I'm glad that I had the 12-step recovery under my belt. So I knew what I had to do for myself.
And then by working through the steps, I find out that it's not so much the...
The actual physical pain, it's the mental pain. And I'm able to change in my mind, the mental pain.
(25:35):
I'm able to understand the mental pain because I don't know,
like when I said, when I was in the hospital and then the chaplain came over
and asked me like how I was doing.
And I said, I was in a lot of pain. And he says, he goes, Elliot,
and he goes, pain is 80% mental and 20% physical.
(25:55):
So you have to decide what kind of pain you're in and then go from there and
it took a long time to do it was like at times i never felt like i was even
worth it and then that that was one of the biggest thing too is am i worth it.
I just, I mean, every time I talk to you, and I'm not just saying this because
(26:16):
we're on a podcast, I'd say the same thing whether we're recording or not.
But I think that, you know, you have a huge opportunity to really make a difference
in other people's lives and to be a testament.
You know, one thing I've, like, really realized is that our own testimony or
(26:37):
our own story makes a huge difference.
You know, it's not so much the teaching and the preaching. I've come to the
conclusion that those things, they have their place, teaching and preaching.
But really what I've realized is what makes a difference in other people's lives,
especially men to men, is hearing somebody else's story.
(26:59):
And how they are overcome. I think about my grandfather. My grandfather had a terminal illness.
And I was, it's ironic. Both of my grandfathers had a terminal illness.
One found out he had cancer and he killed himself. And then my grandfather that
I really grew up with and knew well, he had a terminal illness.
(27:21):
And he basically, I'll never forget,
like I was in the military and he was writing me letters constantly.
And he was checking on me and wanted to see how I was doing when he was sitting
at home hurting and in the most miserable pain that you can imagine.
And his life was, like physically, his body was wasting away,
(27:43):
but I'll never forget the impact of him constantly writing me letters and constantly checking on me.
And that's something that, you know, made a profound impact on me whenever I was young, you know?
And I think about it a lot now because I think I was like, I want to say 19
or 20 when he passed away.
And the thing about it is, is that the one legacy that he left is,
(28:09):
is that, you know, I didn't even really fully grasp how much he was struggling and in pain and all.
Of course, I knew it, but I didn't really grasp it. But what I did grasp is
that that was never the focus when I talked to him.
It was on me and what was going on with me and, you know, his thoughts or whatever, basically in my life.
(28:33):
And that him making that effort in my
own in my life just just really impacted
me you know I felt like somebody cared somebody that really cared about me you
know and I think about you in that way that man you have this opportunity to
really through your story to be impactful to other people you know and I think that.
(28:58):
You know, I see it all the time that you're, you know, every time I'm around
you, that you have that opportunity to really focus on maybe what other,
what's going on in other people's lives.
You know, I think about like an older guy to a younger guy.
I mean, think about all the wisdom there, but we, it, we all know that it's
like, it's kind of like, don't give advice unless I ask kind of deal.
(29:21):
But once you, once they ask, man, it opens this door for you to be able to do
so much wisdom as, you know, kind of an elderly guy and a younger guy.
Right. And I think it's, I look at this situation with you too,
that, man, there's so much you can give when it comes to your story and your testimony.
And, and then I'm, I'm, I think that that's amazing.
(29:43):
Well, like one of the biggest things while he was writing you those letters
and he was saying those things to you, that was getting him out of himself and
out of his pain because he was thinking about somebody else. He was being selfless.
And whenever I do that, whenever I go talk to somebody or whatever,
(30:04):
it helps me a heck of a lot more than it helps them.
Because, I mean, it's also just kind of a reassurance that, hey, I know this knowledge.
I know what to do. I need to take the action.
And for most of my life, I was only thinking about myself. I wasn't thinking
about anybody else. And it caused me to do some pretty drastic things.
(30:28):
And I still do some pretty drastic things now today.
But I know how to respond to situations instead of reacting to situations.
Because when I react to situations, I know that's me.
But if I respond to a situation, I know God is helping me to reply to that.
(30:49):
Yeah, that's for sure. Sure.
Well, I think that there's, so I think really God working in our lives is,
you know, like you can't control MS.
No. You can't control that thing. No. But there's so many things in our lives,
even if you don't have MS, that you can't control. Right. There's so many.
Yes. And part of it is like, I think there's certain things that we,
(31:12):
like you take addiction, you know, let's say you, when you're in your,
in an addiction, you can't, you really can't control it. You're out of control.
It's like completely out of control. But we look at something like maybe alcohol
addiction and we look at it differently.
Like, well, yes, you can control that. Well, no, actually they can't control it.
(31:34):
That's the whole point. So what do they do? What's the answer?
Well, obviously it's like admitting that they are powerless over this.
But then also the part of that is admitting that you need higher power,
that you can't do it, right? Right.
Well, I believe it's the same concept. Even with something like MS,
it's like you admit that you're powerless over this and you can't do this. You need a higher power.
(32:00):
You need somebody to do this for you, right? But even though we look at those
things and say, well, you didn't do MS to yourself, but somebody could easily
say, yeah, but you did alcoholism to yourself or drug addiction.
But I don't think God looks at those things the same. I think he looks at them really the same.
Right. Is that what is the bottom line in both of those scenarios?
(32:22):
And the bottom line is you need God. Yes.
That's completely, that's what it all comes down to. It doesn't matter that
one of them was created by whatever genetics and one of them was created by
maybe your own actions. Right.
The bottom line is, is that you got it? Yeah. Okay.
Anyway, the bottom line is the answer is the same. And I don't think we always
(32:45):
look at it like that, you know?
And unfortunately, you know, this is something that I've really started to realize is that.
I think you have to be real careful because, you know, like you take the 12
steps and all that stuff, you know, it's very simple, right?
They talk about how simple it is. It's a very simple program for complicated people.
(33:08):
But think about it. It's like, it's so easy for us to complicate any point of that process.
And one of the areas I believe that we absolutely do complicate it is,
and when it comes to God, and I think it's easy to add X, Y, and Z.
If you really let God in control, if you're really looking for His will in your
(33:30):
life, well, excuse me, you've got to do X, Y, and Z. Maybe it's go to church.
Maybe it's read your Bible.
But I don't think God works like that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong
with those things, going to church, reading your Bible.
But I do think that we have a tendency to complicate every single process of
our lives because we think that sometimes, honestly, the truth is,
(33:53):
I think that we feel like the answers are too easy.
And I think that God designed these things to be super easy,
and it's easy to think, well, it's too easy, will it work?
And yet we complicate it, and then we wonder why the complication doesn't work.
You know, but if you read the Bible and it talks about like faith as a child,
(34:17):
and I think about, you know, I have kids and I think about, man,
when they're little and they're praying, they're like kneeling beside their
bed and they're praying.
Or, you know, they're listening to a story about Jesus and just the simplicity of it. Right.
It's easy. And that's what happens as they grow older. One of the things that
(34:39):
happens, it gets more complicated and more complicated, but really the faith
that says is childlike faith.
Okay, so I was talking about this the other day with a friend,
and we were talking about, like, the childhood faith.
And then, like, what exactly does that mean, childhood faith?
(34:59):
And for me, like, back when I was a child, what did I have a lot of when I was
a child? I had a lot of imagination. Yeah.
Right? So, my faith from my childhood faith is like I had this great imagination
of how all this was going to play out.
And then, of course, like later on, then the circumstances didn't change,
(35:23):
but I had to change mentally.
I couldn't change physically, but I had to change mentally.
I had to become aware of the situation. I had to accept that I may have this,
but it's not going to control me.
So, like, I'm an alcoholic, but alcohol doesn't control me anymore.
(35:45):
My mind controls me.
Like, I'm able to actually sit down and actually believe and think process everything for myself.
Because I've always relied on other people to do it for me.
Although i but until
i got to step outside of who i'm
(36:07):
somebody told me he goes ellie he
goes look at yourself in the third person no and he goes what would you what
would you tell somebody else if they're going through the same situation you
are and then of course i mean that changes your whole mindset but i can't i
can't talk to myself out of it i need to talk with somebody else Well, I love it.
(36:29):
Remind me of the book you talked about earlier, and I said I had the Into the
Wild. Oh, Wild at Heart. Wild at Heart, yes.
So for you guys listening, if you have not read that book, which it's old,
it's like 20, 30 years old.
Wild at Heart is a great book for men.
But he talks about this, and it's something that I think that we all...
(36:55):
Would benefit from realizing it's like we look at a child and they believe in Santa Claus.
They believe in the tooth fairy. They, and, and, and the thing about it is of course we look at it.
Like some people look at that negatively. You're like, wow, the,
you know, they believe in these fairy tales and they, but you know what?
Also they believe they can do anything.
(37:15):
They believe they could be president of the United States. They believe they could be a ballerina.
They believe. And that kind of faith is really what drives our relationship.
And as we get older, and it's really through disappointments in life,
we start to think, oh, well, I can't be president now because I've been divorced,
(37:36):
and they're going to find out about that. And it just goes on and on.
Or I can't be a ballerina because, you see what I'm saying? I get size 13 shoes.
Oh, there's no Santa Claus. And for y'all listening, there is a Santa Claus,
I'm sure. But, you know, people, of course, in other words, life disappoint
us. We can call it trauma.
You can call it whatever you want to call it. But basically,
(37:58):
life happens. And as it happens, we lose faith in anything.
Because we're not accepting of where we're at. And the truth is, is that those stories,
a lot of people wouldn't agree with this, but those stories of the prince and
the princess and the castle and the hero and all of it, It really stems from
(38:20):
our very unique experience.
Drive that God is there and God exists and God created this thing.
And so we have like this, I call it a God-sized vacuum, and we have this hole
that can only be filled by God.
But some people are so worried.
(38:41):
I remember experiencing this, scared that God wouldn't want me to really follow my dreams.
He doesn't want that. I think he absolutely does.
He wants us to have this imagination and creativity, and he wants us to follow
those things because I think that God is in those things.
(39:02):
He's in those creative things. He's in those creative juices and things that flow, and he wants us to.
The Bible says that basically God gives us the desires of our heart.
And I think about that a lot.
I think about the desires of our heart. It's like, do I really want to be a
(39:23):
person that hurts people?
No, I don't want to be that person. I don't want to hurt people.
Or do I really want to be somebody who you can't depend on, who's not loyal, who's not a good friend?
No, I want to be a good friend.
And so many times it's like, we think by acting like, let's say the Christian
(39:44):
way, we're acting opposite of like, you know, the way we're designed. That's not true.
We're actually, when we do things to help other people, when we actually do
things that make a difference and create of it, all that stuff is God-given.
That's the way he designed us.
Living in self-pity, living in chaos, living in this you know,
(40:10):
constant depression, suicidal, all of it.
That's not how God designed us. And when we actually...
Allow God to live in our life, and we actually depend on him,
and not in this churchy way, but this way of realistic, like, hey, I need help.
(40:30):
Yes. I need something. Yes. I think that actually we are acting exactly in God's
design. I truly mean that.
And I think that it's so easy to complicate it, as we're talking about.
Well, like I said, we overreact. I mean, we react to situations.
I react to a lot of different situations and it's caused more problems.
(40:54):
So when I write down, especially like what I'm going through,
I become more aware of the situation.
So that way I'm able to actually be there.
And like it says in the big book, it says that Bill Wilson, he talks about being
rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence.
(41:14):
Yeah. And you talk about dimensions, height, length, width.
What is the fourth dimension in its time? It's being where I'm at right now.
It's being where my feet are.
It's knowing that right now I'm sitting on a red couch and we're talking.
I'm aware of where I'm at.
Before, I was never aware of where I was at because I was always focused on
(41:37):
my problems. I was always focused on the things that I needed to change.
And I can't change. The only thing I can change is what's behind my nose.
That's the only thing I can change. I can't change anybody. I can't change any
of the situations or nothing on the outside.
The only thing I can change is behind my nose.
So when I wake up in the morning, that's the first thing that I say is I had
(41:59):
to be honest with myself.
I'm not going to allow this situation or this situation to bother me that much
because I know that I have God. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I think the biggest testimony you hear a lot with churches and Christians
is you hear a lot about, talk about witnessing and sharing the gospel.
(42:24):
I think the biggest way we can share the gospel and Christianity and talk about
is basically our own lives, not a perfection.
Right. In other words, God's not seeking perfection out of us.
Yeah. But I'm talking about a real, honest, vulnerable, you living your life
(42:46):
honestly and vulnerably.
You know, I'm always amazed by, you know, it inspires me to hear somebody like
talk about their weakness or talk about something that's going on that like,
you know, my very first reaction sometimes is, wow, I can't believe they shared that.
But then my next reaction is like, I'm very inspired by that.
(43:09):
The fact that, yeah, I'm struggling and yeah, I'm talking about it.
And yeah, you know, I, you know, I think that those things, that vulnerability
and that openness, I think that that right there makes a huge difference.
I don't think it's about the perfect behaviors.
I think, you know, I love the way it says, you know, it talks about progress, not perfection.
(43:30):
Yeah. You know, I think that we want perfection out of ourselves,
but God doesn't even want perfection out of ourselves.
I think that, like, when you're struggling, I think it's easy to look at as
a negative, but it also, it can be a positive, which is, man, I'm aware,
self-aware that, man, I need God's help. I need something.
(43:54):
You know what I mean? And yet, we also have a tendency to think that,
well, I love it. You know, you've heard me say it before, man,
but I talk about it all the time.
Paul says that basically God's grace is made perfect in his weakness.
And when I think about that, it's like, you know, he had, you know,
he's talking about the thorn in the flesh.
(44:16):
Well, Paul had a thorn in the flesh, and that could have been MS.
It could have been anything. It does not say what he had. He had ear trouble, or I mean, eye trouble.
He wanted other people's stuff. He had a coveting problem.
He talked about that. We don't know what he was struggling, but he asked three
times for God to remove it from.
(44:37):
And what God said is, my grace is perfected in your weakness.
And so that gives me hope because really, God, how is God's grace perfected?
Through my weaknesses. How is he strong in my life?
And it's through my weaknesses. It says, if I'm never weak, and you're never
(44:58):
weak, we have no room for God. Right.
None. None. And that right there is like powerful because really,
it's not like he, I don't know.
I was fixing to say it's not like he wants us weak, but actually I think he does.
And I'm not talking about when we think weak, I think we have the wrong idea.
Dependency, we have the wrong idea. You know, it's easy to say,
(45:21):
well, yeah, I mean, you've talked about before the codependency.
Yeah, it's not great for us to be dependent on other people,
but in some ways we are made to be dependent on other people.
You know, fellowship, unity, all that is like huge in our life.
We need fellowship. We need unity. But I think it's where we're not just take, take, take.
(45:46):
Or give, give, give, it's literally this dance where we give and take and we learn.
And I think that God wants unity in our life.
He wants us to be unified with other people. And He wants us to have that fellowship
because I think we're designed to have that fellowship.
And I think one of the greatest fellowships, I think one, is in a marriage,
(46:07):
but also a great way is men to other men.
It's like it's a great fellowship, and God designed that way.
You know? Well, we all have the same. We all go through similar situations.
I mean, if I'm going through a certain situation and you're going through the
same, we can find the commonality between those two.
(46:27):
We can figure out what their problem is. And it's usually just our way of thinking how we approach it.
And I kind of just wanted to say, like, you were talking about,
like, because it says in the Bible, it says that.
The heart of a man will plan his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
(46:58):
And that's something that I had to come to realize that it's more than just
saying that I'm going to allow God to establish my steps.
Because I get sometimes I get so stuck that I'm going to be the head of this plan.
I'm going to be the master of my journey. It's going to go my way.
(47:22):
Then that, that reminds me back into like, when you go back into active addiction
and you hear, you hear that drink, the man takes the drink, then the drink takes the man.
And I liked that aspect of it because what is telling me what it, what it's,
Oh, man. Sorry. It's got a phone call, so I got sidetracked.
(47:49):
Man, I forgot where I was at. So the heart of the man, but the Lord establishes steps.
Man, I'm losing. Well, no, I mean, yeah, I get it.
I think you're, it's interesting because, in fact, I'm trying to look it up
too, where, you know, in the Bible, you have, what do you call them?
That basically you have these examples of faith in Hebrews.
(48:14):
And it says, you know, it talks about these certain people like Rahab the prostitute.
And, you know, I love that because like they're the pillars of faith,
but you know what? They did one thing.
They only did one thing. And it's so easy to like take Rahab the prostitute.
It's so easy for us to think that, man, she just lived a life of faith and she's
(48:36):
an example. But really what Rahab, the prostitute, the only thing she did was open the door.
That's it. Right. For Israel, for their spies, right?
And so when you think about that, it's like, really, maybe our whole life is
based on one thing and that's faith in Jesus, but that's it.
(48:58):
You know, maybe that's the whole point behind it is that, you know,
faith is based on one action.
It's not based on this lifetime of action, but it's like, man,
I had faith in this moment when it came with God, you know?
And I'm always inspired by that because it's really not a lifetime achievement.
It's really one decision to have faith.
(49:21):
And that one, I mean, you take the same thing with like Abraham and Isaac and
offering him on the altar.
That was his one thing that he did.
Right. You know, it wasn't necessarily a lifetime of behavior.
It was this one action that made a difference. Right.
Well, another thing that I just wanted, I just want to say one more thing.
(49:43):
I kind of like on that, on that topic there, there's another Bible verse that
really, that really helped me.
And it's an Ezekiel 36, 26.
It says that I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will take out your
heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
And man, sometimes it's like really quick. Sometimes I can go right into it
(50:06):
and believe that God is, is giving me this new heart, but then my ego and my pride.
So like when I was saying, I was talking about that man, the man takes a drink
and then the drink takes the man.
Um, so what that's like representation of is, is like a guy takes it.
There's, there's a picture of a guy drinking out of a bottle,
but his head is actually inside of the bottle.
(50:30):
Yeah. So, when the man takes the drink, then the drink takes the man,
so he goes inside of the bottle.
Now, when he's inside of that bottle, he only can think about himself.
He's only going to think of how he's going to get out of there.
He's going into protection mode because of what's going on.
(50:51):
So, now, when I go into a situation, I don't look at it with a closed mind,
with an expectation. I walk into it with an open mind and, and I'm,
I'm waiting to, to experience something.
And when I'm talking with a gentleman or I'm going through these things,
I want him to have the open mind.
(51:12):
So I'm praying that I keep my open mind.
So maybe that he can kind of see that too, and he can keep the open mind and
we can, we can continue to grow from there. I think it's great.
Well, Elliot, I appreciate you being on the show today. and it's always a pleasure to have you on.
I appreciate it. And thank you guys for listening.
Again, if you guys want to try the neurofeedback, I would love to set you up a time to do that.
(51:38):
Just go to our website, like I was telling you, evenoneless.com.
Look for the phone number or email and you can email us or you can call me.
Also, if you haven't done it, sign up for our positive text.
You can do that through the website too.
You'll randomly get a positive text from us. It's not invasive.
We don't, you're not going to be in some group chat or anything like that. It's not annoying.
(52:02):
But I encourage you guys to sign up for a positive text.
And really just through the website, you can also find out, you know,
information and resources. So evenoneless.com.
And again, Elliot, I appreciate you taking the time to talk.
And I hope you have a great rest of your week, brother.
I appreciate it. And hopefully we'll see you again soon. Yep.
(52:22):
Music.
I don't know if I get up today. I don't know if I give one single today.
My whole outlook is sunk in gray and I have no idea why I woke up this way.
Got my phone in my right hand, my books on the nightstand. If I unlock and I
add pop, I'm stuck there.
I'm a dead man. So Lord, give me the strength to please read one page.
If it works in any way, I'll move on to the next dango deal.
(00:20):
I got my socks on. I'm coming up. Welcome to Positively Undefeated.
This is a podcast that talks about the day-to-day struggle ordinary people have
over their demons and how each day they remain positively undefeated.
We share ideas and ways that you can empower yourself to remain strong so that
you can embrace the journey of living.
(00:42):
Okay, welcome to Positively Undefeated. I'm Burl Stricker, your host.
If you guys haven't had a chance, go to our website, evenwoneless.com.
There's a few things that are going on with us.
Number one, we got a new system is called NeuroOptimal.
It's neurofeedback. It's a great tool.
(01:04):
It's a great tool for help training your brain. It's a great tool for really
for you mentally to work out, for you mentally to like focus, work on those things.
That's what this system does. And we have that available here.
And so if you'd like to try it, go to our website, evenoneless.com.
(01:24):
It's a great asset for here in Western Oklahoma. There isn't another place that
does it anywhere near here.
But really, it's painless. It's non-invasive. It's really easy.
You hook up to it. You listen to some music. And really, it just helps you to
train your brain to focus.
So anyway, great. If you have a chance, give us a call, and we'd be happy to set it up for you.
(01:49):
Um and we're here again with elliot what's up elliot
how's it going burl it's a pleasure to be
back here i i i'm honored to keep
coming back and being on your show i appreciate you doing it
i um yeah i'm pretty excited about you
tried the neurofeedback and and and again
it's not some magic pill it's you know the really the goal is how did you feel
(02:11):
overall afterwards were you still or how were you feeling my okay so i went
into it and i mean i have a lot of things going on in my mind right now so there
there was a lot of distractions but going through it.
I got to think, think of it in a different way. Yeah. Like I,
like I never thought of it the way that I did watching it.
(02:33):
I, I don't know. Maybe that, I guess it was just more clarity.
Yeah. Of. Did the music interrupt or stop while you were doing it?
The music actually, I mean, I, I was like, like you were saying,
I was in kind of like a meditative state.
So I was really feeling the music and then, but yeah. So I think,
(02:55):
I think everything, the way that it's set up is absolutely perfect.
I think it's, it'll, it'll do the job without even you trying to do it.
I mean, it's, it's working without you even knowing it.
Well, I tried this, you know, Elliot, I probably told you this before where
people listening, where in the world I came up with this idea.
First of all, it's for a nonprofit, even when less.
(03:15):
And, you know, that's the system is, you know, it's got a lot under the hood.
I mean, it really does. And I love it because I always am looking for,
you know, solutions that are not, you know, this doesn't come in a pill form.
It doesn't create, you know, have to have a diagnosis.
(03:35):
It doesn't, I feel like there is,
those things are great. I think that counseling, for example, is great.
I think this is another tool in your tool belt that you can use for.
Again, you can do that as many times as you want, and that's what I love about it.
I know when I did it this weekend, and I just felt calmer when I was done, you know.
And I know that's not everybody's experience, but, you know,
(03:59):
when I did it, it just helped me focus a little bit more.
They say that you need, like, an average of 10 sessions, really,
to, you know, experience the benefit of it. But, you know, it doesn't,
again, there's no diagnosis involved. This is not a medical model.
But what it does do, it's like it helps you sleep better.
(04:23):
It helps you focus more. It helps you, like if you're dealing with anxiety,
and you were talking about kind of dealing with some anxiety this morning when you got on it. Yeah.
And so I think those things, you know, that's the goal, is it helps reduce those
things without taking some kind of medication or drug or, you know,
any of that. And so I'm very excited about what it can do.
(04:44):
You're the second person to
try it. So that's cool. But I appreciate you trying and being willing to.
But we're really going to try to get it out there. I think that there are some
opportunities to help people.
And, you know, of course, we're also looking at it as a way to,
you know, make some money with our not-for-profit and be able to bring in some money.
You know, of course, everybody likes the donation. And, you know,
(05:05):
I'd love it if somebody called up and said, Burl, I want to give you a million
dollars for your suicide awareness, you know, not for profit.
But that's not realistic.
What's realistic is that we don't want to really be out there begging for money.
What we want to do is be able to provide services that really can make a difference.
And so, you know, when I looked it up to see who else does this,
(05:28):
the closest one was either Denver, Colorado, or like the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
And so I'm like, man, what a great thing to bring to Western Oklahoma.
And it's great for kids. It is. Absolutely.
And it's absolutely like.
Now that I watched it the first time, now I know kind of what to expect and
kind of what to expect for the next time. Yeah.
(05:49):
But so I think that like the 10 sessions, you start paying more attention each session.
I know like something for me, like I have to keep doing it repetitively before I understand it.
Yeah. I think it's a great tool. And, you know, I want to encourage anybody
listening. If you're in our area and you would love to do it, I'd love to hook you up.
(06:12):
And like I said, you can pretty much just sit there and listen to music.
That's all you have to do. There's no really requirement besides that.
So if you get a chance, go to our website.
There are my numbers on the website. And so you can give me a call,
and we'll try to set that up.
Elliot, so how's life treating you since the last time we talked?
(06:35):
Last week yeah yeah it's uh
i can't believe it's only been a week there's there's been
a lot of things that's been happening uh the past week and
uh a lot of it is um that
i had a hard time controlling my my uh
attitude my temper um especially when
i was in a lot of pain and um it
(06:57):
just seemed like it just kept getting worse so i was just making more things
where i was i was making everything difficult in my
life because i i didn't know where
i was so what do
you mean you're making everything difficult explain that okay so
i overthink a lot of things i actually overthink everything um somebody said
(07:22):
one time that a normal human being has 30 000 thoughts go through their mind
a day 30 000 different thoughts go through their mind a day For me,
I have five thoughts that go around my mind 30,000 times a day.
And it's always the same. I can never, I can never get out of that.
(07:44):
For some reason, like I get into that and I just go into the whole pity party
and all that stuff. And it just...
I'm not aware of the situation I'm in.
I'm aware of the situation I'm in, but I'm not aware of the location.
So I don't know where I'm at when I'm going through these feelings.
(08:10):
And if I don't know where I'm at going through these feelings,
I'm not going to even touch to figure out what's going on with it. Yeah.
So I have to really look, what is the biggest thing that's distracting me right now?
And it's my selfish, self-centered mind that I have going on because all I can
(08:32):
think about is my pain and I have a hard time getting, like,
I think when I'm in pain, I don't think people are hearing me.
They're listening to me, but they're not hearing.
I feel like they're not understanding, but maybe it's me that doesn't understand the pain that I'm in.
(08:55):
I'm curious, you know, Elliot, as you're talking and as we talked in the past,
do you think that a lot of your, let's say, troubles or problems or whatever,
do you think it stems from your diagnosis of MS?
Or was this already there before the diagnosis of MS?
(09:16):
Do you think the MS created some of these things that are going on or do you
think it was already there?
Oh, that's a good question. And I was talking about, I was discussing with this with another friend.
Okay, so before my diagnosis, there was always something wrong with me.
(09:36):
I could never figure out what it was.
And then, of course, that was making me frustrated. I mean, I was making my mom frustrated.
That was making me frustrated. I mean, you could just see the frustration.
So by the time that I got the diagnosis that it was multiple sclerosis,
I've already lived with it for so many years.
(09:58):
Um and so we
were thinking about it and now that i i'm pretty sure that coming up with like
this they're having a hard time differentiating uh head trauma from a blunt
force to actually just going through trauma because it has kind of the same effect um so.
(10:23):
So when okay so if you
if you break down the word disease okay and
it's dis ease so you're like
you're you're not at easy you're at this ease
so like when we go through struggling um situations
and stuff we're not we're not at ease we're we're
agitated we're frustrated and we're going 90
(10:46):
miles an hour um people start
having like the like the brain hemorrhages and stuff
like that i mean this is how serious that that trauma can be i mean because
it can cause so many things mentally well yeah but when you're talking about
the trauma again is it trauma from the ms diagnosis and the the the side effects
(11:07):
of that or do you feel like it was trauma before that,
okay so the trauma started before the before i got the diagnosis because there
was something that was going on with me i didn't know what it was i i hated
what was going on with me so then after i get the diagnosis and of course there
was the ms diagnosis i mean that just.
(11:30):
Absolutely took everything from me because knowing
that there was there was something always wrong with me but
then finally getting the the knowledge of what
actually it is and it and it's something that's
just not in my head you know
um that i think that
(11:50):
is probably where the trauma came in
is is growing well growing
up with it that was the start of the trauma and there's
like i said there's always something wrong with me and then after i
get the diagnosis the first thing that i think of is the negative and i'm always
thinking of like all the things that i'm not going to be able to do so then
(12:13):
that shut me down so bad mentally and then that's why i was in the wheelchair
for the two years and it took me over five years to like get back up and.
Being able to do things physically. Mentally, I wasn't there.
I've never really been there mentally because I've been out of it so long physically.
(12:34):
Yeah. It was hard for me to get into it mentally.
Yeah. Well, what do you think, you know, as I'm listening to you talk,
what do you think that you're, what do you hope comes out of your life?
Like, you know, you have a lot of years left.
I hope so. And I'm curious what you hope to get out of your remaining years
(12:58):
left, because what do you look, how does the future look to you?
The future looks to me like what I'm doing right now. And what I'm doing right
now is I'm getting out of myself. I'm going out and I'm talking to people.
I'm helping people with the situations that I have been through.
Um, and then watching somebody experience that for the first time, um,
(13:23):
when you sit down and you talk with them and they finally have that,
that self appreciation for themselves, you know, they, they,
they got that smile, they, their eyes ain't no better feeling than that.
Um and that that's what keeps me going is is is helping somebody else experience this.
(13:44):
This great life there's a lot of complications
but it's a great life and and a
lot of it is like i said it was it was it
was the deceit like i got that so i wasn't
i was stressed out and when i was stressed out i
get angry your blood pressure raises your rate i mean
all those things you can physically hurt yourself
(14:05):
just by being agitated or whatever for so
long and i think once somebody
showed me how to to ease that
pain he showed me how to start to ease
that pain and i just i've been on that ever since because that just keeps me
going like i said what keeps me going is helping other people watching watching
(14:28):
somebody else yeah go off of um listen to what you say then And it sparks a direct attack.
They feel like they're not alone.
They feel like. Well, I look at, you know, whenever I've talked to you,
we talked several times and we've known each other now for a couple of years.
(14:50):
And I think it's a year, a couple of years.
That's what it feels like. But anyway, and really my, I have the overall same impression that I,
when I first met you is that, man, there's lots of opportunity for you to really
help somebody and, and, and be an inspiration to somebody.
Because, you know, I think that even though we've talked about the diagnosis
(15:16):
of MS, that it's definitely, you know, a debilitating and progressive, you know, illness.
But I think there's so much you can offer to really to other people to be able
to, you know, inspiration from how you are dealing with it, how you're, you know, you know.
I think that even if you had like a daily journal, you know,
(15:39):
that it just shows that there's, yes, there's all kinds of things going on,
but I think that you can be inspirational to those people.
And yeah, and I think that it reminds me of kind of like the saying is like,
we all feel like we're special and different, even in our problems.
And I know I could see why you would feel that way.
(16:01):
Like, you're special. Because, I mean, how many people do I know that have MS? I've known some.
You know, I used to work in healthcare. I was working in nursing homes forever.
And we had people in there with MS.
So I have some experience with that. I had a friend that was a CPA of mine. Yeah.
You know, he did, you know, my taxes and whatever, and he had MS.
(16:24):
And so I have some experience there.
But it's definitely, you know, unique to you.
You know, there's not too many people I know currently that have it,
you know, that I talk to on a regular basis.
And so you are unique, but I feel like also it's easier for me to say that too.
Like I'm unique because I'm dealing with this problem, X, Y, and Z. Yeah.
(16:47):
But the truth is we're not really that unique. We all have our own deal.
It's all similar. We all have our own problems, but yet how we deal with those
problems is really the same.
You know, we are not how we deal with them, but the fact that we all have problems
that are different, we all have problems.
(17:07):
We all are struggling in different ways. and yet
there seems to be this continuity there that
it's easy to forget or easy to you know think i'm
special because my problems or whatever but the
the truth is we're all struggling right and i
think that the fact that somebody they can
relate to you despite them not having a
(17:29):
meth right but yet they're still struggling they're
struggling and i can see how it's easy to
for people to judge you or vice
versa you to judge them well if they didn't if they
had ms you know they wouldn't be as good as
bad as whatever but you still see that
that's not productive you know in any means
(17:50):
and that i mean that's really why i'm why i
want to do this what i'm doing is oh because it's just
a mindset it's about changing your mindset like i have ms but ms doesn't have
me yeah i i'm i whenever i walk out outside i'm not wearing a sign that says
i have ms feel sorry for me or i'm not wearing a sign that says like i have
(18:14):
to use a walker and i'm 42 years old and.
I'm i'm not looking for that kind of attention but sometimes i feel like i'm
getting i'm i'm begging for that kind of attention right but that's my perception
of what other people are thinking.
So for me, I have to change my mind.
And then like when I say, when I wake up in the morning, I do my honest,
(18:38):
I have to be honest with myself. I have to have hope.
The only way that I have hope is by giving it away. So I can't stay in my bedroom
and give away hope. I have to go out in the public and get hope, give away hope.
And then I got to have faith. I got to believe that God has got me no matter what.
Yeah. And if I do that and then realize, like, we were talking about earlier,
(19:02):
I was talking about it earlier with a friend that says, why does it say that—.
Um, we know how to handle situations, which used to baffle us.
And it doesn't say I know how to handle situations that used to baffle us.
And it's because it's, it's a, we problem.
It's not just a, you problem. We all have the same problem. Sometimes it's in different severities.
(19:26):
I mean, you can't compare your pain to my pain and say like,
I cannot believe how you're doing this. But then you tell me your pain and I'll
be like, I don't know how you're doing it.
It would be impossible for me to do that. But we're doing it.
And it's just all about that mindset.
And I kind of just lost where I was going with it.
(19:50):
Well, I think that it's also, you know, I think about, you know,
I used to live in self-pity, you know, and I used to constantly live in that place.
And what that self-pity looked like for me is that I thought about dying constantly.
I just thought about, oh, I don't want to live.
I'd say stuff like, excuse my lanes, but fuck my life in my head.
(20:13):
I would say those things.
And it would be like a record player just constantly rotating and saying the
same things over and over again in my head.
And that came from this place of self-pity, which maybe it comes from.
I think that can come from all kinds of different places.
I think it can come from despair. I think it can come from depression.
(20:35):
But part of that, when you talked about the hope, it's like,
I know now that if I have that loop going on inside of my head where I'm thinking
these negative thoughts.
That that loop is, you know, a indication of something bigger going on.
You know, I know that I cannot live in that constant loop of negativity in my
(20:58):
life, because if I do, then it's just going to, you know, take me down ultimately.
And so I think one of the things I've learned over, you know,
the last couple of years is I have to recognize that quickly and I really have
to do something about it.
And I think you said it, it's like, I think, you know, I used to say,
well, what do you do about it?
But I think the answer really foremost is get outside yourself and try to help other people.
(21:25):
Try to focus on other people.
One of the things that really hit me right from the beginning,
you're talking about the big book, and one of the things that hit me almost
immediately was not to pray for myself, but pray for other people.
And I never really heard that concept before.
But I think that that idea, that's what I, if somebody asks me my opinion about
(21:50):
stuff, that's one of the things I tell them is that your prayer life,
as mechanical as it can be, and I've said it many times, that my prayer life
many times is very mechanical.
It might be just reading the Lord's Prayer or reading.
And to be honest with you, I don't even, I'm not a big fan of the Lord's Prayer.
I never have been. But what I've realized is that, man, I can just take a prayer
(22:15):
like the Lord's Prayer and just repeat it, you know, at times.
And it feels mechanical.
But part of that is that I'm really praying for—I want to pray for other people.
I want to stay out of that self-focused because, you know, I do know my problems.
And it's like being in that self-pity cycle, it's just no good.
(22:36):
But I found that if I'm praying for, you know, my friends and people that I
know and my family, that that gets me out of that.
And if I make that a daily habit, that seems to make a huge difference.
You know, when I look at that, do you know, okay, when you're talking about
that and you become aware of the situation, what's that? More coffee.
(22:58):
Yeah, sure. People figure us getting more coffee. Okay. Okay.
What was I saying well I can't remember exactly what it was we're just like
praying getting outside yourself and,
Okay, so when we get outside of ourselves and we start praying for other people,
(23:19):
we're starting to accept, and this is really weird, we're starting to,
without knowing it, we're starting to accept a new habit, a new responsibility.
And that's a lot of, like, with me, with the trauma and everything that I've
gone through, and every person's like this, we operate off of learned behavior.
(23:43):
So from ever since we were like little kids or
whatever we we were accustomed to learn
behavior so we would see like what
other people were doing and we would try to mimic that we
would try to to to be
that um oh man
so when i'm praying for
(24:04):
somebody else i'm becoming more acceptance of like
what's going on like in my life i'm
starting to realize i'm starting to take an inner look at
myself when i start praying for other people because
because when i pray for other people i'm praying for everything that i want
and um i then that makes me aware of the things that i need to change in my
(24:26):
life yeah and i think and like i said it all comes back down to the the the mindset
um i had a
friend she came up to me and
she said well i heard you had ms and i heard you
had all these things and she was asking me some questions about it and she was
asking me like what does it do to you mentally and i said mentally it's one
(24:49):
of the worst things ever she goes well i had a friend she she was 37 when she
was diagnosed she had three kids a house a husband And she had all these great
careers and everything.
She killed herself at 39.
Because the pain was too much. It wasn't the physical pain, but it was just the mental pain.
(25:11):
And I'm glad that I had the 12-step recovery under my belt. So I knew what I had to do for myself.
And then by working through the steps, I find out that it's not so much the...
The actual physical pain, it's the mental pain. And I'm able to change in my mind, the mental pain.
(25:35):
I'm able to understand the mental pain because I don't know,
like when I said, when I was in the hospital and then the chaplain came over
and asked me like how I was doing.
And I said, I was in a lot of pain. And he says, he goes, Elliot,
and he goes, pain is 80% mental and 20% physical.
(25:55):
So you have to decide what kind of pain you're in and then go from there and
it took a long time to do it was like at times i never felt like i was even
worth it and then that that was one of the biggest thing too is am i worth it.
I just, I mean, every time I talk to you, and I'm not just saying this because
(26:16):
we're on a podcast, I'd say the same thing whether we're recording or not.
But I think that, you know, you have a huge opportunity to really make a difference
in other people's lives and to be a testament.
You know, one thing I've, like, really realized is that our own testimony or
(26:37):
our own story makes a huge difference.
You know, it's not so much the teaching and the preaching. I've come to the
conclusion that those things, they have their place, teaching and preaching.
But really what I've realized is what makes a difference in other people's lives,
especially men to men, is hearing somebody else's story.
(26:59):
And how they are overcome. I think about my grandfather. My grandfather had a terminal illness.
And I was, it's ironic. Both of my grandfathers had a terminal illness.
One found out he had cancer and he killed himself. And then my grandfather that
I really grew up with and knew well, he had a terminal illness.
(27:21):
And he basically, I'll never forget,
like I was in the military and he was writing me letters constantly.
And he was checking on me and wanted to see how I was doing when he was sitting
at home hurting and in the most miserable pain that you can imagine.
And his life was, like physically, his body was wasting away,
(27:43):
but I'll never forget the impact of him constantly writing me letters and constantly checking on me.
And that's something that, you know, made a profound impact on me whenever I was young, you know?
And I think about it a lot now because I think I was like, I want to say 19
or 20 when he passed away.
And the thing about it is, is that the one legacy that he left is,
(28:09):
is that, you know, I didn't even really fully grasp how much he was struggling and in pain and all.
Of course, I knew it, but I didn't really grasp it. But what I did grasp is
that that was never the focus when I talked to him.
It was on me and what was going on with me and, you know, his thoughts or whatever, basically in my life.
(28:33):
And that him making that effort in my
own in my life just just really impacted
me you know I felt like somebody cared somebody that really cared about me you
know and I think about you in that way that man you have this opportunity to
really through your story to be impactful to other people you know and I think that.
(28:58):
You know, I see it all the time that you're, you know, every time I'm around
you, that you have that opportunity to really focus on maybe what other,
what's going on in other people's lives.
You know, I think about like an older guy to a younger guy.
I mean, think about all the wisdom there, but we, it, we all know that it's
like, it's kind of like, don't give advice unless I ask kind of deal.
(29:21):
But once you, once they ask, man, it opens this door for you to be able to do
so much wisdom as, you know, kind of an elderly guy and a younger guy.
Right. And I think it's, I look at this situation with you too,
that, man, there's so much you can give when it comes to your story and your testimony.
And, and then I'm, I'm, I think that that's amazing.
(29:43):
Well, like one of the biggest things while he was writing you those letters
and he was saying those things to you, that was getting him out of himself and
out of his pain because he was thinking about somebody else. He was being selfless.
And whenever I do that, whenever I go talk to somebody or whatever,
(30:04):
it helps me a heck of a lot more than it helps them.
Because, I mean, it's also just kind of a reassurance that, hey, I know this knowledge.
I know what to do. I need to take the action.
And for most of my life, I was only thinking about myself. I wasn't thinking
about anybody else. And it caused me to do some pretty drastic things.
(30:28):
And I still do some pretty drastic things now today.
But I know how to respond to situations instead of reacting to situations.
Because when I react to situations, I know that's me.
But if I respond to a situation, I know God is helping me to reply to that.
(30:49):
Yeah, that's for sure. Sure.
Well, I think that there's, so I think really God working in our lives is,
you know, like you can't control MS.
No. You can't control that thing. No. But there's so many things in our lives,
even if you don't have MS, that you can't control. Right. There's so many.
Yes. And part of it is like, I think there's certain things that we,
(31:12):
like you take addiction, you know, let's say you, when you're in your,
in an addiction, you can't, you really can't control it. You're out of control.
It's like completely out of control. But we look at something like maybe alcohol
addiction and we look at it differently.
Like, well, yes, you can control that. Well, no, actually they can't control it.
(31:34):
That's the whole point. So what do they do? What's the answer?
Well, obviously it's like admitting that they are powerless over this.
But then also the part of that is admitting that you need higher power,
that you can't do it, right? Right.
Well, I believe it's the same concept. Even with something like MS,
it's like you admit that you're powerless over this and you can't do this. You need a higher power.
(32:00):
You need somebody to do this for you, right? But even though we look at those
things and say, well, you didn't do MS to yourself, but somebody could easily
say, yeah, but you did alcoholism to yourself or drug addiction.
But I don't think God looks at those things the same. I think he looks at them really the same.
Right. Is that what is the bottom line in both of those scenarios?
(32:22):
And the bottom line is you need God. Yes.
That's completely, that's what it all comes down to. It doesn't matter that
one of them was created by whatever genetics and one of them was created by
maybe your own actions. Right.
The bottom line is, is that you got it? Yeah. Okay.
Anyway, the bottom line is the answer is the same. And I don't think we always
(32:45):
look at it like that, you know?
And unfortunately, you know, this is something that I've really started to realize is that.
I think you have to be real careful because, you know, like you take the 12
steps and all that stuff, you know, it's very simple, right?
They talk about how simple it is. It's a very simple program for complicated people.
(33:08):
But think about it. It's like, it's so easy for us to complicate any point of that process.
And one of the areas I believe that we absolutely do complicate it is,
and when it comes to God, and I think it's easy to add X, Y, and Z.
If you really let God in control, if you're really looking for His will in your
(33:30):
life, well, excuse me, you've got to do X, Y, and Z. Maybe it's go to church.
Maybe it's read your Bible.
But I don't think God works like that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong
with those things, going to church, reading your Bible.
But I do think that we have a tendency to complicate every single process of
our lives because we think that sometimes, honestly, the truth is,
(33:53):
I think that we feel like the answers are too easy.
And I think that God designed these things to be super easy,
and it's easy to think, well, it's too easy, will it work?
And yet we complicate it, and then we wonder why the complication doesn't work.
You know, but if you read the Bible and it talks about like faith as a child,
(34:17):
and I think about, you know, I have kids and I think about, man,
when they're little and they're praying, they're like kneeling beside their
bed and they're praying.
Or, you know, they're listening to a story about Jesus and just the simplicity of it. Right.
It's easy. And that's what happens as they grow older. One of the things that
(34:39):
happens, it gets more complicated and more complicated, but really the faith
that says is childlike faith.
Okay, so I was talking about this the other day with a friend,
and we were talking about, like, the childhood faith.
And then, like, what exactly does that mean, childhood faith?
(34:59):
And for me, like, back when I was a child, what did I have a lot of when I was
a child? I had a lot of imagination. Yeah.
Right? So, my faith from my childhood faith is like I had this great imagination
of how all this was going to play out.
And then, of course, like later on, then the circumstances didn't change,
(35:23):
but I had to change mentally.
I couldn't change physically, but I had to change mentally.
I had to become aware of the situation. I had to accept that I may have this,
but it's not going to control me.
So, like, I'm an alcoholic, but alcohol doesn't control me anymore.
(35:45):
My mind controls me.
Like, I'm able to actually sit down and actually believe and think process everything for myself.
Because I've always relied on other people to do it for me.
Although i but until
i got to step outside of who i'm
(36:07):
somebody told me he goes ellie he
goes look at yourself in the third person no and he goes what would you what
would you tell somebody else if they're going through the same situation you
are and then of course i mean that changes your whole mindset but i can't i
can't talk to myself out of it i need to talk with somebody else Well, I love it.
(36:29):
Remind me of the book you talked about earlier, and I said I had the Into the
Wild. Oh, Wild at Heart. Wild at Heart, yes.
So for you guys listening, if you have not read that book, which it's old,
it's like 20, 30 years old.
Wild at Heart is a great book for men.
But he talks about this, and it's something that I think that we all...
(36:55):
Would benefit from realizing it's like we look at a child and they believe in Santa Claus.
They believe in the tooth fairy. They, and, and, and the thing about it is of course we look at it.
Like some people look at that negatively. You're like, wow, the,
you know, they believe in these fairy tales and they, but you know what?
Also they believe they can do anything.
(37:15):
They believe they could be president of the United States. They believe they could be a ballerina.
They believe. And that kind of faith is really what drives our relationship.
And as we get older, and it's really through disappointments in life,
we start to think, oh, well, I can't be president now because I've been divorced,
(37:36):
and they're going to find out about that. And it just goes on and on.
Or I can't be a ballerina because, you see what I'm saying? I get size 13 shoes.
Oh, there's no Santa Claus. And for y'all listening, there is a Santa Claus,
I'm sure. But, you know, people, of course, in other words, life disappoint
us. We can call it trauma.
You can call it whatever you want to call it. But basically,
(37:58):
life happens. And as it happens, we lose faith in anything.
Because we're not accepting of where we're at. And the truth is, is that those stories,
a lot of people wouldn't agree with this, but those stories of the prince and
the princess and the castle and the hero and all of it, It really stems from
(38:20):
our very unique experience.
Drive that God is there and God exists and God created this thing.
And so we have like this, I call it a God-sized vacuum, and we have this hole
that can only be filled by God.
But some people are so worried.
(38:41):
I remember experiencing this, scared that God wouldn't want me to really follow my dreams.
He doesn't want that. I think he absolutely does.
He wants us to have this imagination and creativity, and he wants us to follow
those things because I think that God is in those things.
(39:02):
He's in those creative things. He's in those creative juices and things that flow, and he wants us to.
The Bible says that basically God gives us the desires of our heart.
And I think about that a lot.
I think about the desires of our heart. It's like, do I really want to be a
(39:23):
person that hurts people?
No, I don't want to be that person. I don't want to hurt people.
Or do I really want to be somebody who you can't depend on, who's not loyal, who's not a good friend?
No, I want to be a good friend.
And so many times it's like, we think by acting like, let's say the Christian
(39:44):
way, we're acting opposite of like, you know, the way we're designed. That's not true.
We're actually, when we do things to help other people, when we actually do
things that make a difference and create of it, all that stuff is God-given.
That's the way he designed us.
Living in self-pity, living in chaos, living in this you know,
(40:10):
constant depression, suicidal, all of it.
That's not how God designed us. And when we actually...
Allow God to live in our life, and we actually depend on him,
and not in this churchy way, but this way of realistic, like, hey, I need help.
(40:30):
Yes. I need something. Yes. I think that actually we are acting exactly in God's
design. I truly mean that.
And I think that it's so easy to complicate it, as we're talking about.
Well, like I said, we overreact. I mean, we react to situations.
I react to a lot of different situations and it's caused more problems.
(40:54):
So when I write down, especially like what I'm going through,
I become more aware of the situation.
So that way I'm able to actually be there.
And like it says in the big book, it says that Bill Wilson, he talks about being
rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence.
(41:14):
Yeah. And you talk about dimensions, height, length, width.
What is the fourth dimension in its time? It's being where I'm at right now.
It's being where my feet are.
It's knowing that right now I'm sitting on a red couch and we're talking.
I'm aware of where I'm at.
Before, I was never aware of where I was at because I was always focused on
(41:37):
my problems. I was always focused on the things that I needed to change.
And I can't change. The only thing I can change is what's behind my nose.
That's the only thing I can change. I can't change anybody. I can't change any
of the situations or nothing on the outside.
The only thing I can change is behind my nose.
So when I wake up in the morning, that's the first thing that I say is I had
(41:59):
to be honest with myself.
I'm not going to allow this situation or this situation to bother me that much
because I know that I have God. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I think the biggest testimony you hear a lot with churches and Christians
is you hear a lot about, talk about witnessing and sharing the gospel.
(42:24):
I think the biggest way we can share the gospel and Christianity and talk about
is basically our own lives, not a perfection.
Right. In other words, God's not seeking perfection out of us.
Yeah. But I'm talking about a real, honest, vulnerable, you living your life
(42:46):
honestly and vulnerably.
You know, I'm always amazed by, you know, it inspires me to hear somebody like
talk about their weakness or talk about something that's going on that like,
you know, my very first reaction sometimes is, wow, I can't believe they shared that.
But then my next reaction is like, I'm very inspired by that.
(43:09):
The fact that, yeah, I'm struggling and yeah, I'm talking about it.
And yeah, you know, I, you know, I think that those things, that vulnerability
and that openness, I think that that right there makes a huge difference.
I don't think it's about the perfect behaviors.
I think, you know, I love the way it says, you know, it talks about progress, not perfection.
(43:30):
Yeah. You know, I think that we want perfection out of ourselves,
but God doesn't even want perfection out of ourselves.
I think that, like, when you're struggling, I think it's easy to look at as
a negative, but it also, it can be a positive, which is, man, I'm aware,
self-aware that, man, I need God's help. I need something.
(43:54):
You know what I mean? And yet, we also have a tendency to think that,
well, I love it. You know, you've heard me say it before, man,
but I talk about it all the time.
Paul says that basically God's grace is made perfect in his weakness.
And when I think about that, it's like, you know, he had, you know,
he's talking about the thorn in the flesh.
(44:16):
Well, Paul had a thorn in the flesh, and that could have been MS.
It could have been anything. It does not say what he had. He had ear trouble, or I mean, eye trouble.
He wanted other people's stuff. He had a coveting problem.
He talked about that. We don't know what he was struggling, but he asked three
times for God to remove it from.
(44:37):
And what God said is, my grace is perfected in your weakness.
And so that gives me hope because really, God, how is God's grace perfected?
Through my weaknesses. How is he strong in my life?
And it's through my weaknesses. It says, if I'm never weak, and you're never
(44:58):
weak, we have no room for God. Right.
None. None. And that right there is like powerful because really,
it's not like he, I don't know.
I was fixing to say it's not like he wants us weak, but actually I think he does.
And I'm not talking about when we think weak, I think we have the wrong idea.
Dependency, we have the wrong idea. You know, it's easy to say,
(45:21):
well, yeah, I mean, you've talked about before the codependency.
Yeah, it's not great for us to be dependent on other people,
but in some ways we are made to be dependent on other people.
You know, fellowship, unity, all that is like huge in our life.
We need fellowship. We need unity. But I think it's where we're not just take, take, take.
(45:46):
Or give, give, give, it's literally this dance where we give and take and we learn.
And I think that God wants unity in our life.
He wants us to be unified with other people. And He wants us to have that fellowship
because I think we're designed to have that fellowship.
And I think one of the greatest fellowships, I think one, is in a marriage,
(46:07):
but also a great way is men to other men.
It's like it's a great fellowship, and God designed that way.
You know? Well, we all have the same. We all go through similar situations.
I mean, if I'm going through a certain situation and you're going through the
same, we can find the commonality between those two.
(46:27):
We can figure out what their problem is. And it's usually just our way of thinking how we approach it.
And I kind of just wanted to say, like, you were talking about,
like, because it says in the Bible, it says that.
The heart of a man will plan his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
(46:58):
And that's something that I had to come to realize that it's more than just
saying that I'm going to allow God to establish my steps.
Because I get sometimes I get so stuck that I'm going to be the head of this plan.
I'm going to be the master of my journey. It's going to go my way.
(47:22):
Then that, that reminds me back into like, when you go back into active addiction
and you hear, you hear that drink, the man takes the drink, then the drink takes the man.
And I liked that aspect of it because what is telling me what it, what it's,
Oh, man. Sorry. It's got a phone call, so I got sidetracked.
(47:49):
Man, I forgot where I was at. So the heart of the man, but the Lord establishes steps.
Man, I'm losing. Well, no, I mean, yeah, I get it.
I think you're, it's interesting because, in fact, I'm trying to look it up
too, where, you know, in the Bible, you have, what do you call them?
That basically you have these examples of faith in Hebrews.
(48:14):
And it says, you know, it talks about these certain people like Rahab the prostitute.
And, you know, I love that because like they're the pillars of faith,
but you know what? They did one thing.
They only did one thing. And it's so easy to like take Rahab the prostitute.
It's so easy for us to think that, man, she just lived a life of faith and she's
(48:36):
an example. But really what Rahab, the prostitute, the only thing she did was open the door.
That's it. Right. For Israel, for their spies, right?
And so when you think about that, it's like, really, maybe our whole life is
based on one thing and that's faith in Jesus, but that's it.
(48:58):
You know, maybe that's the whole point behind it is that, you know,
faith is based on one action.
It's not based on this lifetime of action, but it's like, man,
I had faith in this moment when it came with God, you know?
And I'm always inspired by that because it's really not a lifetime achievement.
It's really one decision to have faith.
(49:21):
And that one, I mean, you take the same thing with like Abraham and Isaac and
offering him on the altar.
That was his one thing that he did.
Right. You know, it wasn't necessarily a lifetime of behavior.
It was this one action that made a difference. Right.
Well, another thing that I just wanted, I just want to say one more thing.
(49:43):
I kind of like on that, on that topic there, there's another Bible verse that
really, that really helped me.
And it's an Ezekiel 36, 26.
It says that I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will take out your
heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
And man, sometimes it's like really quick. Sometimes I can go right into it
(50:06):
and believe that God is, is giving me this new heart, but then my ego and my pride.
So like when I was saying, I was talking about that man, the man takes a drink
and then the drink takes the man.
Um, so what that's like representation of is, is like a guy takes it.
There's, there's a picture of a guy drinking out of a bottle,
but his head is actually inside of the bottle.
(50:30):
Yeah. So, when the man takes the drink, then the drink takes the man,
so he goes inside of the bottle.
Now, when he's inside of that bottle, he only can think about himself.
He's only going to think of how he's going to get out of there.
He's going into protection mode because of what's going on.
(50:51):
So, now, when I go into a situation, I don't look at it with a closed mind,
with an expectation. I walk into it with an open mind and, and I'm,
I'm waiting to, to experience something.
And when I'm talking with a gentleman or I'm going through these things,
I want him to have the open mind.
(51:12):
So I'm praying that I keep my open mind.
So maybe that he can kind of see that too, and he can keep the open mind and
we can, we can continue to grow from there. I think it's great.
Well, Elliot, I appreciate you being on the show today. and it's always a pleasure to have you on.
I appreciate it. And thank you guys for listening.
Again, if you guys want to try the neurofeedback, I would love to set you up a time to do that.
(51:38):
Just go to our website, like I was telling you, evenoneless.com.
Look for the phone number or email and you can email us or you can call me.
Also, if you haven't done it, sign up for our positive text.
You can do that through the website too.
You'll randomly get a positive text from us. It's not invasive.
We don't, you're not going to be in some group chat or anything like that. It's not annoying.
(52:02):
But I encourage you guys to sign up for a positive text.
And really just through the website, you can also find out, you know,
information and resources. So evenoneless.com.
And again, Elliot, I appreciate you taking the time to talk.
And I hope you have a great rest of your week, brother.
I appreciate it. And hopefully we'll see you again soon. Yep.
(52:22):
Music.
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